Written originally by Hajrudin S. MUJA in New York.
“Historically, it was the year 1826 when England and France accepted the request of M. Obrenović (1780-1860) and when the Serbian soldiers occupied Banjska, Dečani, Gračanica, etc., expelling or converting the Albanians and demolishing their temples [“Letopis Gračanički ”, Gračanica 1995]. Following the historical line from this time, when the Ottoman Empire was on the verge of total bankruptcy, the Slavs inflicted five periods of barbarism on Muslims in general and Albanians in particular.
In Sami Frashër’s collection of proverbs, it is said that “If there were no lies, many loans and strangers, no one would lie.” Perhaps the father of Serbian literature, Dobrica Qosić (1921-2014), got the idea from this wisdom, who, seeing that there are many strangers among his compatriots, encouraged them to lie in order to deceive themselves, for “charity”, for “humanity”, for the sake of freedom, because after all: “Lies are a form of our patriotism.
It is evidence of our innate intelligence. We lie creatively, fantastically, masterfully”! Since he was also a politician in the position of the first president of the third Yugoslavia [Islami:2003, p.56], he was well aware of the importance of lies in the policies that Serbia has developed in the last two centuries, introducing and maintaining in the “dance” of both the Academy of Sciences and the Serbian Orthodox Church!
The biggest lie that they have ever “cooked”, in proportion to the Albanians, is the “Albanianization of the Albanians”, a theory that was falsified and strongly supported by many Serbian authors, who invented the myth that, after the Battle of Kosovo (1389 ), the change of the “political and spiritual structure” of the Serbs began, through their Islamization and Albanianization in Kosovo, who with the support of the “Turkish authorities” became the majority and expanded, forcing the “removal of the Serbian population” and embezzled their wealth! Thus, according to the church historian, Slijepçeviq: “the Serbs who remained and were surrounded by them, were forced to accept Islam, the traditions and the language of these incoming Albanians” [Laffan: 1989, p.126].
While one group of historians claim that the Dushanian kingdom (1331-1355) led the Albanians to extinction, the other group deals with Serbian-Albanian “friendships” until the appearance of Serbian nationalism and especially until the political and media claims of recent times. As D. Tucovic accuses, the wrong Serbian political elite, with its bourgeois press: “created a whole tower of untrue and tendentious opinions about the Albanians, and the conquering policy of Serbia with its barbaric methods had to fill the Albanians with hatred of deeply towards us” [“Sabrana Dela Dimitrije Tucovica”, Belgrade 1980, p.107].
Otherwise – the latter claim – the well-known Serbian and Albanian ruling and noble families were closely related through political marriages. The two most talked about Albanian personalities that connect them with the Serbs are the “Serbian saint” Angelina and the Kastriot family. Angelina was the daughter of Gjergj Komneni, who married the Serbian despot Stefan Brankovic, who was from Skanderbeg, whose mother was Vojislava (Tripalda), the daughter of the Serbian nobleman from Donji Pologu of Macedonia.
His grandfather bore a Serbian name [Branilo], as did his brothers [Stanisha, Reposh and Konstandin]. He married his sister, Marije, to Stefan Cërnojević of Zeta, while his son, Ivan, to Irena, who was the daughter of Lazar Branković [Lopandić:2019, p.8-11]. Moreover, until the end of the 19th century, the churches and monasteries of Kosovo were Orthodox churches and not Serbian churches, which were maintained and frequented by Albanians as well.
The same authors say that everything was turned upside down with the creation of Serbian nationalism, creating slanderous theories in the 19th century, theories strongly supported by Jovan Tomiqi, Vladan Gjorgjeviqi, Jovan Cvijiqi, Jovan Haxhivasileviqi, etc. [Malcolm:1998, p.196-199], for whom Catholicism also bears a part of the blame as a “secret ally of Islam” and a “traitor of the cross”, which constantly tried to “convert the Orthodox to the Catholic religion” [Carter & Norris:1996, p.12,13].
Furthermore, Marko Marković rejects the thesis of the Illyrian origin of Albanians and insists that “until the 17th century there were no Albanians” [Marković:1995]! A whole “chorus” of Serbian historians have supported this thesis, justifying it with the violent conversion to Islam and the Albanians, that the latter: “did not exist as a people”, that they are neither “Arbanians”, nor ” Arnauts” nor “Albanians”, but “pure Serbs” converted to Islam [Oraovac:1999], namely Albanians.
In this context, an important role has been played by Serbian orientalists, who have constantly added fuel to the fire, thus forming stereotypical images of Muslims in general and Albanians in particular, treating them as inferior foreign factors,and threatening [Cigar:2003, p. 17], such as cannibals, people with tails, virgin bastards, bandits, bloodsucking savages, European redskins, horseshoes, thieves, robbers, tramps, etc. [“Serbia and Albanians”, Pristina 2011, p.170].
They had prepared the ground in time. Sociologist Peter Gay says that Vladan Gjorgjeviqi, who had put the “tail” on the Albanians, was probably the last to express his racist imagination [Gay:1993, p.82]. Bismarck’s reckless claim that “there is no Albanian nation” [Peackok:1914, p.176] and those who accepted it as a “disoriented nation” who “beat the doctors who were helping them in hospitals” [Baring:1913, p.176], was used as ‘credit’ for the defense of their racism as a “holy people”, who were faced with descendants of bandits from various countries of the Balkans [Lane:1922, p.14-15] or, as Prince Aleksie Karagjorgjevic called them, “savages from which Europe must be cleansed” [Pirraku: 2003, p.21].
In a summary formulation, the Porte, in cooperation with the Roman Church and the Albanians, cooperated in the conversion of the Serbs, since they, being Orthodox, were nothing but “albanized Serbs”, who, according to Cvijic and Haxhivasilevic, were ” Albanianized” or “arnautized” when they became Muslims [Hadživasiljević: 1909]! Of course, we must take into consideration the lies of these “scientists”, which, although defamed from top to bottom, have served and are serving to justify their sins, which they have committed against the “albanized” in centuries.
The last test of the Serbian terrorist attack in Banjska in the municipality of Zveçan (Mitrovica), on September 24, 2023, should not surprise us, but should teach us about the “democratic” methods of Serbian political functioning, which even when they fail in the plan “A” has prepared plan “B” to blame the victim! Such barbarisms are not the first and will not be the last.
This is not a new test, but a continuation of tests, which after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, unfortunately for us, proved to be “successful” not only in theory, but also in practice. It does not matter if at the head of the Serbian government stands the right hand of Milosevic, who under normal conditions should have been in The Hague, because according to what we have learned from our past, whoever was in his country, however many opponents of appeared, it would act the same against Kosovo.
The first barbarism occurred at the beginning of the 19th century, it was called the “cleansing of the Turks” and was caused between 1804 and 1826, as a result of the First and Second Serbian Uprising, for the formation of the national state, encouraged and strongly supported by Russia . “Purge” was a literary term, previously used by Vuk Karaxhiqi (1787-1864), precisely for the cleansing of Belgrade by “Turks”, in 1806, with 75 percent Muslims, mainly Albanians [Lieberman:2013, p. 10]. In the official biography of Karagjorgji, Konstandin Nenadovici says that, after the capture of Belgrade, the Serbs “slaughtered the Turks wherever they found them, sparing neither the wounded nor the women nor the children… and only those who promised to be crucified were spared” [Nenadovic: 1971, p.166]. Until 1826, many surrounding regions, including Uzhica, Shabac, etc., suffered the same “fate”!
The second barbarism took place between the years 1830 and 1867 and was known as the “crucifixion of the Turkicized”. The order of Miloš Obrenović (1780-1860) was still active, when in 1832 he said that all Muslims (Albanians or Bosniaks) who would be caught “on the territory of Serbia” should be beaten with 25 strokes of the stick, as a punishment because they “they did not know how to fight for their freedom” [Brestovci:1983, p.48] and that “great credit belongs to the one who became the cause of the disappearance of as many Albanians as possible”! During this time, in the conditions of a cold winter, about 300,000 Albanians from Toplica, Kosaonica, Pustareka, etc., who lived in about 700 localities, of which about 640 were completely Albanian or with an Albanian majority [ Pirraku: “Open letter to the G-7+1 Group”]. The well-known massacre in the all-Albanian village of Meduni, around the year 1857, was only a part of this plan [Bytyçi:2009, p.69]
The next genocide took place between 1876 and 1878, known as the “extermination of Muslims”, this result of the policy of Montenegro, which aimed at territorial expansion in the direction of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Northern Albania, San
Jak, Kosovo and the coast, of course with the support and encouragement of Russia, which through Serbia planned to establish complete control in the Balkans. This was “the last battle for Serbia, from Andrija to the Balkans” – Montenegro belonged to “Serbism” and all those who could think that it belonged to them were accused of treason [Andrijašević:2007, p.16]! The final of this resulted in the territorial expansion from the existing 5,937 km2 to 15,017 km2, giving it an additional population of 43,700 inhabitants [Brill:1936], not counting the evicted. Until this time, Serbia had massacred and expelled with terror about 350,000 Albanians from 545 Albanian villages of Sanjak, Nis, Leskovci, Toplica, Kurshumli, Prokupla, Pusta Reka, Vraj, etc., destroying all the mosques, mosques, tombs and cemeteries. [Tirta: 2006, p.121]. 117,000 of these settled as migrants in the Kosovo Province, until the next barbarism. This was clearly helped not only by the decisions of the Congress of Berlin, but also by the secret agreement between Serbia and Austria, an agreement signed by the Serbian Foreign Minister M. Mijatović, to stop its agitation in Bosnia, provided that Austria supports it in the territorial claims of “Old Serbia” (Kosovo) up to the Vardar Valley [Prothero:1913, p.403].
The fourth barbarism belongs to the First and Second Balkan War (1912-1913), which was incidentally known as “the day of doomsday on earth”. While the concern about the possibility of creating an Albanian state with a Muslim majority had increased, the Orthodox Balkan states declared the “holy crusade” to the Empire, where the Albanians would once again be the target.
“The New York Times” announced how thousands of Muslim Albanians, among them women and children, had been massacred by the Serbian army and “drunk with their victory, they declared that the most effective pacification of Albania is the total annihilation of the Muslim Albanians, but not not even the Catholics were spared”. A “Red Cross” doctor told the “Daily Telegraph” how Albanians were “killed without mercy…”, while “Humanite” of Paris reported on “looting, burning and mass murder of the Albanian population”.
In the article “Screaming Accusations” Leo Freundlih also testified about the collective extermination of Albanians in the fall of 1912: only in the North of Albania over 250 thousand Albanians were massacred [Bislimi:2011, p.226]. If you look carefully at the data of the newspaper “Riget”, “Raihspost”, “Albanische Correspondenz”, “Daily Telegraph”, “Deutsches Vilksblatt”, “Raihspost”, etc., it will be clearly understood that under the police and military power, to escape death, 12 thousand Albanians “voluntarily” switched to Orthodoxy (until the possibility of return)! The soldier Gjorgje Shekularac lied to Europe that the Albanians “are expressing a desire to convert to the Orthodox religion” [Pirraku: 2003, p.22]. The balance: 220,000 Albanians killed or dying from the hardships of war and 281,747 deported until 1914.
The barbarisms continued during the SKS kingdom, in which the lives of Albanians had no value, until its collapse in 1941. The Committee “National Defense of Kosovo” had sent the “Peace Conference” in Paris the names of 12,346 killed in the period October 1918 – December 1921 [Culaj:1997, p.171]. Meanwhile, between the years 1918-1924, there was talk of the disappearance of 182 villages in Kosovo: in Drenica alone, 815 children under the age of 10 were liquidated [Bajrami: 1995, p.75]!
More or less, this was the situation in other parts of Kosovo! Since the trial of “voluntary” conversion did not give the planned results, their strategy through these macabres exercised on them will be realized with their organized expulsion, an organization that had started from the last quarter of the XIX century, when through deportations had emptied “Over 100 Albanian villages of the valley of Toplica and Vranje, mercilessly expelled from Serbia” [Pllana: 1980, p.141].
In the barbarism of the Second World War (1941-1945), when the peoples of Yugoslavia were moving towards “fraternization-unification”, according to some data, the Serbian soldiers liquidated 106,000 human beings, among them 47,300 Albanians, regardless of age or gender. [Pirraku:1993], data that may be higher in any research, agreeing with the popular wisdom that “what is not written, is not probable”. Efforts were being made to realize the great hope of General Luba Novaković (1883-1943), who on September 12, 1941, wrote to Kosta Pečani (1879-1944) about the desire that “not a single white wrinkle” be left in Kosovo or to the poet Mita Popovic (1841-1888) who dreamed that “Istanbul would belong to the Serbs”! It is worth mentioning the words of Hoxha Iljas Broja, who, seeing and knowing the occasional barbarism of the Serbs against the Albanians, in 1946 told them: “You are disloyal. We, like all Albanians, i.e wind, we don’t expect anything else from you, except the bullet behind the knife. You are killing us, you have killed many others before us, and you will continue later with crimes, but you are deceived that you can exterminate this people, that you can suppress its freedom-loving spirit. We have bequeathed it to the generations, as our forefathers bequeathed it to us, so that they do not believe in your seed”!
Broja’s finding is naturally related to the reports that the Balkan wars, the First World War, the creation of the Yugoslavia of Versailles (SKS) in 1918 [Tomasevic: 2008., p.2], the law on Agrarian Reform (1919) [Lita : 2016], with the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), with the Law of Colonization (1933), with the Convention of 1938, with the Second World War (1939-1945), with the “Kaçak” Resistance Movement, with the “Balkan Pact” (1953) etc.
These reports tell us that only between the years 1919-1940, 276,489 Albanians moved from Kosovo to Turkey (p.20), while 85,000 Slavic colonists settled in their properties [Bajrami:1995, 20] In 1948, 98,000 Muslims ( Albanians and Bosniaks) declared themselves “Turks”, to escape by migrating to Turkey [Roux:1992, p.155], while five years later (1953), this figure had multiplied to 260,000 [Kirisci:2000, p. 61–78]. The reports also speak of 452,371 Albanians emigrating between 1952 and 1965. Čubrillovic (1897-1990) was sure that the emigration of Albanians would not produce any reaction in the international arena, just as it did not produce either the emigration of Jews from Germany or of millions of people from Russia [Islami: 2003, p.38]!
We also experienced the last Serbian barbarisms in the Third Balkan War (1992-2001), in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia. They are the same genocidal “strategies” that the Serbs continued to implement meticulously on the advice of Njegosh, Grashanin, the Serbian Orthodox Church (KOS) and the Serbian Orientalists of the Serbian Academy of Sciences (ASSH)!
The Serbian political program “Načertania” (1844) aimed to create a “Christian empire”, an ambitious plan for the expansion of the Serbian state on the borders of medieval Dušanian Serbia [Glenny:2007, p.46], using Muslim religious affiliation as justification to exterminate the Albanians [Bajrami: 1995, p.34]! In the realization of this program, Europe also significantly helped, because from Ottoman Albania, which consisted of four vilayets with a territory of 90,100 km2, it allowed the creation of a truncated Albania, with 28,500 km2, as much as only the Vilayet of Manastir! It is she who in the “Peace of Bucharest” recognized Serbia’s right to occupy Albanian territories.
Be it for the political elite, be it for the intellectual one, be it for the ecclesiastical elite, be it for the majority of the ordinary population, Milosevic, Karadzic, Mladic, Arkan and all the other criminals of this war, were the “cream” of the Serbian population and patriotism! At the head of the executioners is Milosevic, who commanded and gave orders to take hundreds and thousands of people’s lives, swearing on television screens about “international law”, about “aggression against his country”, about “integrity”, about ” legitimacy” and other facts fabricated in the dark recesses of the infamous UDB. Drenica, Kosharja, Rahoveci, Prekazi i Skenderaj, Prishtina, Gjakova, Reçaku… were scenes of bloody battles, of a terrible war, of sacrifices and privations of a people faced with violence and the military machinery of crime.
The balance is still not complete for Kosovo alone: 800,000 deported, 15,000 killed and massacred, including 2,400 fighters, the rest (90 percent) unarmed civilians. About 20,000 abused Albanian mothers and sisters, 3,000 missing, most of whom were found in mass cemeteries in Serbia, without knowing the fate of 2,087 others. More than 218 mosques were burned, demolished or shelled, more than 1,100 settlements were burned, partially or completely, more than 200,000 houses, apartments, business premises, craft workshops, factories, schools, libraries, cultural and historical monuments were destroyed. , cultural-scientific objects, etc., many of which have been under the supervision of the Institute for the Protection of Historical Monuments [Islamic Knowledge #216/2008].
The destruction of historical cultural monuments, such as the 218 mosques, the memorial complex of the Albanian League of Prizren, the disappearance of the busts of prominent figures of our renaissance and the changing of the entire name of Kosovo, was aimed at reviving Serbian ecclesiastical myths and serbization of Kosovo [Islami:2003, p. 85]!
The current situation of the Serbo-Albanian conflict in Kosovo has entered a direction from which no one can predict the end. The escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine (NATO), the ever-escalating terror war in the Middle East and other events can change the global situation in a short time or, at least, divert attention from the problems that have left suspended in Kosovo. The bias of the international factor is an additional, but continuous problem of the unresolved Serbo-Albanian problems.
They have had the opportunity several times to see and understand that the solution to the Kosovo problem does not come from Serbia, but, on the contrary, it is the problem itself. Unfortunately for us, such biases have been observed in all periods. The intervention of the international factor in the last war in Kosovo should not surprise us, just as we should not be surprised by the suspension of problems within it! What can we expect from the international factor at a time when it is left alone even by its natural allies!?
We don’t have to point the finger at anyone but ourselves, because if you follow the debates on our screens, a large part of the debaters leave the impression that the government of Kosovo is more to blame than the government of Serbia for the created situation!? I follow them, to leave the impression that today in Kosovo there is freedom of expression, but there are few free journalists. They are hostages of the past system, of foreign masters (including Serbia), of the political underground and their agendas, but also of drug addiction and crazy ideas! You have seen how the “chat” goes around saying “in front of armed individuals” instead of the name they have “terrorists and criminals”. Time will prove a lot of what we don’t know or don’t want to believe today, but we don’t dare not to know history and learn from it, so that it doesn’t repeat itself.”
Reference
Balkan Academia 